


Selenelion

by queercosmos (i_feel_electric)



Series: the one where you'll return to me [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Plot What Plot, Unbetaed we die like men, basically a glorified prologue, sentient soul bond, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24484975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_feel_electric/pseuds/queercosmos
Summary: Some lives felt longer than others. Some ended too quickly, almost as soon as they’d begun. Others stretched out past the very reaches of time and reason. This one felt like that. Like Kisuke had been The Weaver in all of his manifestations, even though he knew that was not true. Even though he had caught glimpses of his own threads in other tapestries. Weavers weren’t allowed to know the details of their own patterns, so he didn’t know where they went. When they happened, if they had happened at all yet. Still, he noticed. And he wondered why he seemed to be tethered to this one in particular.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Series: the one where you'll return to me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768720
Comments: 4
Kudos: 82
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Selenelion

**Author's Note:**

> the first installment in a 6 part uraichi series on reincarnation, inspired by this illustration - http://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/25-lives/
> 
> thanks to gotcocomilk for existing. and also for kicking this nebulous concept into a more solid form. even more thanks to friends new and old for the lovely words of support, all of you are amazing <3

Some lives felt longer than others. Some ended too quickly, almost as soon as they’d begun. Others stretched out past the very reaches of time and reason. This one felt like that. Like Kisuke had been The Weaver in all of his manifestations, even though he knew that was not true. Even though he had caught glimpses of his own threads in other tapestries. Weavers weren’t allowed to know the details of their own patterns, so he didn’t know where they went. When they happened, if they had happened at all yet. Still, he noticed. And he wondered why he seemed to be tethered to this one in particular.

The answer didn’t come to him for quite a while. Years, perhaps. Decades were more likely. All Kisuke knew was that he felt ancient despite his unchanging face. It made it harder to keep track of things. He only had the threads and the subtle shifting of the world around him to tell the difference.

He traveled a lot, too. It was necessary, due to his work, and also to avoid answering the difficult question of why he never aged. Of course, that didn’t stop the occasional thread from getting tangled with his.

The Kurosakis, for instance, were an interesting case, even before knowing them personally. Kisuke had learned, over the course of many years, that certain threads were different from the others. Heavier, thicker, brighter, more or less colorful. Their threads, however, gave off the kind of light you couldn’t ignore. In fact, one shone much like the sun itself, always flickering at the edge of Kisuke’s vision whenever he wasn’t looking at it.

_Ichigo_ .

Never had he seen a thread so blinding. It was hard to look at directly, just as it was hard to look at the boy himself.

And it was chance, if there ever was such a thing, that Kisuke even bumped into Isshin one waterlogged day on his way to see an old friend. They both stood there on the sidewalk, soaked to the bone, and Isshin had insisted on coffee as an apology. His wife made the best, he’d boasted, grinning wide enough to hide the strain around his eyes. But then Kisuke had blinked and the strain was gone. It had intrigued him, seeing that flash of another life where it didn’t belong. It was why he’d agreed to the coffee.

Though he’d known, if he’d looked, that his thread would have already been permanently wreathed in indigo and gold.

“What took you so long?” Yoruichi had asked, once Kisuke actually managed to show up some hours later.

He’d sat on the edge of the porch beside her and rested against one of the wooden support beams. Water dripped down from the eaves, splashing into stone as rain continued to fall, and Kisuke offered her the faintest twist of his lips.

“It would seem my thread has found a new pattern.”

Her expression had turned to one of surprised delight.

“Hey, that’s great! It’s only been about a thousand years, right?” Yoruichi teased. Kisuke remembered laughing slightly.

“Maybe not quite a thousand,” he said.

“Yeah, but long enough to feel like it.” She’d swayed to the side, pressing her arm into his. “You’ve been waiting for something to happen ever since we met, and that was at least half a millennium ago.”

“Mmm,” Kisuke hummed. “You know that means nothing to me.”

“Can’t help it. Time is all I think about.”

“I know.”

Her forced enthusiasm had drained from her body then and Kisuke also knew what was coming, even without seeing.

“So, does it happen today?” Yoruichi had asked, as she always did.

He’d stared blankly out at the garden. “No. It does not.”

“’Course it doesn’t,” she scoffed. Her shoulders curved in on themselves. “It never fucking does.”

Kisuke may have been The Weaver, but that did not mean he was privy to all the mysteries of the universe. Like why he had been chosen to perform this task. Or why Yoruichi was destined to endure the ages without an explanation why. He’d searched the threads for an answer too many times and found none. Hers simply went on, without end. As if it was also waiting for something.

“Has it changed?” he’d asked, turning to study her profile and frowning at the intense wrinkle of her brow, the skin of her bottom lip, bitten raw.

Yoruichi tossed him an annoyed glance. “The hell do you think?”

The greatest of all the mysteries between them would always be the presence of her soul bond—a short-eared owl, poised for flight, tattooed in the hollow of her shoulder. Even more strange, was that it didn’t speak to her. Didn’t shift its form to reflect her counterpart. Soul bonds were alive, after all, in their own way. Independent of their hosts, free to roam as they pleased. It was unusual for one to appear as hers had. Dormant, almost. Asleep. Kisuke still didn’t understand their natures any more than she did. He merely moved the threads where they were meant to go, seeing all yet grasping very little.

“Forgive me, Yoruichi, I wish I could do more,” he’d said. He remembered the forever of her answering sigh.

“Not your fault. I’m just cursed, obviously.”

Kisuke had reached over to lay his hand over hers and squeeze.

“It’s not a curse. It’s a test of your will.”

“Yeah, well…” Yoruichi forced a smile, the skin of her lip cracking open again with the movement. “It’s a test I’m not sure I can pass.”

He’d wondered, then, if this life was also a kind of test for him to pass. Were the threads merely a record of their trials? Transcribing the old and dictating the new. A demand to prove their worth.

Kisuke had gained no enlightenment that fateful day. Nor the following day. But sometime after, there was indeed something new. Something he would never have believed, even if he had felt the vibration of his silver thread humming against the pads of his own fingers.

For the answer he’d sought had been hiding in a forgotten place that existed out of time. A place Kisuke often went to when he desired to work in peace. To ease the weight of existence, especially one so cumbersome as his. That it chose to reveal itself to him in this moment instead of any others, he would never know. But it amused him, regardless. Seeking solitude only to find purpose instead.

☽

Thick branches pressed in around him while he climbed moss-covered steps, the air cool and damp after the rains, raising goosebumps on the flesh of his arms. He moved away from the path to delve deeper into tree shadow and the taste of wet earth grew ever stronger the further he went. Kisuke inhaled; felt the pull of so many threads reaching out to him, making his fingers itch at his sides. The clearing wasn’t far. At least, it never appeared to be, despite knowing better. Relief still settled over him when he pushed through low-hanging branches and found the ruined shrine exactly as he’d left it.

He couldn’t say why he feared that it would be different. So much of this life had been spent waiting for change, and yet the shrine, this hauntingly beautiful sanctuary, was one of the only things that remained as constant as he was.

Kisuke stepped forward, admiring, as he liked to do, the tangle of thick wisteria vines that claimed what was left of the structure. As if to root the decaying wood to the spot and hold it down with its blanket of purple blooms.

Another step, then two. The heavy air stilled around him and the taste of wet earth on his tongue turned sharp and sour. Gleaming, moonlight eyes materialized in the shrine’s doorway. Not so constant, it would seem.

“Are you the one I’ve been waiting for?” A low, feminine voice rumbled out of the darkness.

He closed his eyes. There was only his thread, floating in a sea of infinite threads. None of them belonged to the voice.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” Kisuke said.

“I see.”

At least one of them did.

Then the gleaming eyes moved and there emerged from the darkness an enormous shape so black, he almost didn’t recognize it.

“How did a wolf find its way here?” Kisuke wondered aloud.

The wolf came to the edge of the crumbling steps, sitting back on its haunches, and cocked its head.

“How curious,” she said. “That you don’t realize what is in front of you.”

Did he not? Kisuke’s brow furrowed and he moved closer again to study the strange creature. It was unlike any wolf he had ever seen before, perhaps, but a wolf all the same. Even if its dark fur swallowed every particle of light that touched it. Even if its bulk felt like the heaviest stone as much as the vast, infinity of space.

“I don’t understand,” he said, quietly. The forest breathed in and waited.

“I am not a wolf. And you  _are_ the one I’ve been waiting for,” she answered.

There was such certainty in her voice. Yet Kisuke could not parse the meaning behind it.

“I still don’t understand.”

She whuffed, lifting her great, pointed snout, and seemed to laugh. “You’re a Weaver, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Not a very bright one, obviously,” she said, tone dry. Her eyes burned in the blackness. “You know of my kind. The ones who bind souls.”

Kisuke’s brows lifted now in comprehension. “Oh.”

“Oh? Is that all?” She whuffed again.

But he could only think of new questions.

“Are you my soul bond?”

“If I wish to be, yes,” she answered, then lifted a massive paw. “Though my current form tells me I probably don’t have a say in the matter anymore.”

“Why would it not be your choice?” Kisuke asked. All soul bonds chose their hosts, he had learned at least that much over the many years, if nothing else.

The wolf shifted where she sat, as if suddenly uncomfortable.

“We see affinities like you see lifetimes, you know.”

This night was full of surprises.  _How fascinating_ . Kisuke took another step closer. “I did not.”

“It’s how we decide. My affinity for you as well as your affinity for him,” she said. “There are many, though we tend to choose the strongest ones.”

“Him?”

Did he have a counterpart? The threads had never indicated clearly that he would or wouldn’t. Kisuke had always assumed, as The Weaver, that he was destined to walk through this life unaccompanied. The wolf sighed and narrowed her pale eyes in annoyance.

“You really are an idiot,” she growled. “He’s the shiny one, with the thread you can’t look at for more than a few seconds.”

_Ichigo_ . He found himself frowning again.

“How did you—”

“Because of our affinity, do you even listen?”

If the wolf’s brilliant, milky eyes had irises, he imagined he’d see them rolling right now. But Kisuke could only stand there on the soft grass, the forest finally exhaling around him while he processed all of this rather astonishing information.

He closed his own eyes, Ichigo’s thread a flare of phosphorus in his periphery. It wasn’t difficult to follow it back to the point their threads converged. Though it was difficult to study too closely, its intensity swallowing all the finer details. Kisuke remembered their meeting that day the rains wouldn’t stop. He remembered Isshin’s broad laughter and Masaki’s generosity. The girls had been elsewhere, but he’d felt them there, in the house. Two beams of sunlight shot through with sky. But Ichigo…

Ichigo had caught them on his way out the door and didn’t spare more than a moment for greetings. He supposed that was all it took, now that he looked back, reliving the arrow of warmth that had punctured his chest—right between the third and fourth rib—as their gazes met.

“Do you see now?” she asked.

Kisuke opened his eyes. “I think so.”

“Then it’s time.”

“Time for what?”

He had only a few seconds to watch the corner of her wide mouth curl back in what might have been a smile before she moved, leaping from the steps to curl around his legs, enveloping him in shadow. It licked up his body until his vision was entirely obscured, turning his world to a disorienting blackness for a breath or two. And then it faded. The wisteria trembled in a breeze that wasn’t there. Kisuke glanced around. Alone.

_Not alone_ , a voice unfurled inside his head, as if stretching.

“Is it always like this?” he asked.

_Sometimes_ , she replied.  _A flash of the dramatic never hurt anyone_ .

Kisuke laughed. Is that what that was?

_Careful, I can hear you_ .

“My apologies.”

She snorted.  _Roll up your right sleeve_ .

He looked down at his arm, lifting it to do as she asked. The worn, cotton sleeve revealed pale skin, then a shape on his forearm that had not been there previously. It was familiar, though he couldn’t remember the name.

_A jackal_ , she told him, and it coiled around his arm, tail flicking into the crook of his elbow.

“But you were a wolf.”

_How keen of you, Weaver_ , she drawled. The jackal stared up at him, unimpressed.  _It is not you, it’s him_ .

Kisuke saw it now, in the coloring. The tawny coat, sprinkled with white, and a saddle of black fur that reached all the way to its tail. The eyes, too. Soft brown. Light and alive.

_I am many things, just as you are many things_ .

The jackal tucked into itself and took on a new form, trading fur for golden petals that danced.

_Just as he is many things_ .

“A sunflower.”

It shifted again, spinning into a blazing star, then dimmed, and settled on a simple arrangement of darker lines that radiated outward in a perfect circle.

He smiled. “The sun,” Kisuke said, lifting his other hand to touch it. His eyes widened when it pulsed beneath his fingertips and grew hot.

_It’s strong_ .

“The bond?” he asked. “How can you tell?”

_I feel it_ , she answered.  _Like you feel all the patterns of all the worlds_ .

Kisuke closed his eyes. He reached out towards the threads and they hummed in unison, as if singing.

“Does this change anything?” he wondered.

She hummed, too.  _You’re still a Weaver, if that’s what you’re asking_ .

So, nothing, then. Kisuke moved to sit on the crumbling steps, no longer steady on his feet.

“If nothing has changed, I am destined to watch him die.”

_Are you so certain that’s your fate?_ she asked.

He couldn’t be. As far as he was concerned, he had none.

“I don’t know,” Kisuke said. He stared out at the deep dark of the trees while the sun pulsed beneath his shirtsleeve. “I’ll most likely never know, until it happens.”

_Then why waste your breath on questions you can’t answer?_

A fair point. He laughed again, but it sounded empty to his own ears.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

Kisuke could sense the change as she shifted again, unfurling into the sleek form of the black-backed jackal and winding up around his shoulder, as if pleased that he’d asked.

_I am pleased_ , she said.  _And you may call me_ _ Aishō _ .

“Aishō.” His lips twitched upward into a smile. “How fitting.”

_ Will you go see him again? _

“Ichigo.”

_ Yes, Ichigo. The one who burns like wildfire. _

His heart beat faster at the thought. Truthfully, he hadn’t even given himself a moment to let the enormity of this revelation sink in quite yet.

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Kisuke replied. “There is still work to do tonight.”

He had waited an eternity already, hadn’t he? What was another handful of hours that washed over him like so much seawater.

☼

The Kurosaki household looked exactly as it had before, its nondescript appearance the same as all the others on the street, save for the bright blue shutters. Even in the middle of a downpour, it had seemed charming. More so, now that there was some sunlight peeking through the clouds. Kisuke squinted up at the sky and felt the pleasant warmth of it on his face. But it couldn’t hold a candle to the warmth in his chest.

_ Why are you hesitating? _ Aishō asked. He felt her curl around his hip, long tail swishing up against his side.

Kisuke wasn’t hesitating. He merely didn’t like to rush. She snorted.

_ What nonsense _ .

“It’s not nonsense,” he said.

_ Then knock, for heaven’s sake _ .

A phantom tug against his fourth rib had him breathing in, then bringing a hand up to the door. Kisuke knocked twice. The world expanded behind him in the time it took for anyone to answer. He was not disappointed when soft, brown eyes came into focus one exhale later.

Though it seemed Kisuke couldn’t remember what it was he’d planned to say. 

Ichigo’s mouth ticked upwards as he leaned on the door frame. “It’s you.”

“So it is,” he answered. 

Kisuke was ancient—knew the fabric of every universe—and yet he floundered here, standing face to face with the one meant to be his counterweight. A burden he wished on no one, truth be told, but there was a strength in those soft eyes. A steadfast tenacity in the very fibers of Ichigo’s thread that blinded Kisuke even now, with his eyes open.

“My dad’s not here, if you were looking for him,” Ichigo said.

He smiled a little, tilting his head just so.

“A shame. However, I did not come for Isshin.”

The meaning hung between them until it brushed pink across Ichigo’s cheeks.

“Kisuke, is that you?” Masaki called from somewhere inside and materialized behind her son a moment later. “Oh, what a nice surprise! Well, don’t just  _ stand _ there, Ichigo, let the man in.”

Ichigo laughed, ducking his head before stepping out of the way. Aishō changed shape and moved until gold petals fluttered gently over Kisuke’s heart.

“Would you like some tea, Kisuke?” Masaki asked as she disappeared into the kitchen.

He blinked and made himself step forward into the foyer. “I would love some, thank you.”

Quietly, Ichigo closed the door behind them. Kisuke felt him linger.

“Can I, uh, take your coat?”

The question lingered, too, and he wondered if Ichigo already felt the pull or if he was merely imagining things.

_ He does _ , Aishō whispered in his mind. 

“You may,” Kisuke said, beginning to shrug off the light material.

But long fingers caught at the collar and pressed, briefly, to the curve of his shoulders. It created an unexpected ripple of frisson in its wake, the kind that replayed over his skin like an echo. Kisuke turned enough to look as Ichigo hung the coat on a hook beside the door. Aishō’s petals stretched out into fine rays and he felt their heat, just as he felt it when he met Ichigo’s bright gaze.

Then a muffled clatter in the sink reminded him that he was meant to be playing guest, not staring. He offered Ichigo another small smile. “Shall we?”

Ichigo reached up to rub at the back of his neck and grinned, gesturing towards the kitchen wordlessly, and Kisuke wished he didn’t find his sudden self-consciousness quite so endearing.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Masaki said, once they’d both taken a seat at the kitchen table.

“Likewise,” he replied, and meant it, despite possessing ulterior motives. “I wanted to thank you, for the time before.”

Masaki laughed, waving him off as she picked up the tea pot and brought it to the table. “Oh, don’t worry about it. The two of you looked like drowned rats, it would’ve been pretty heartless of me not to take at least  _ some _ pity.”

She poured him a steaming cup and Kisuke accepted it gratefully, letting the pleasant aroma fill his lungs when he inhaled. 

“Still, you have my thanks.”

“Well, you’re always welcome.” Masaki went to pour another cup, then paused, glancing over at her son. “Ichigo, you don’t work today?”

Ichigo hummed a negative. “Tomorrow.”

“No plans, then?” she asked.

Shaking his head, Ichigo stole a look at Kisuke that he was sure no one had missed.

“I didn’t really get the chance to hang out last time.”

“Ah,” Masaki answered. Her mouth curled as she smiled at Kisuke. “You’re right.”

It was a knowing smile. He would bet that few things slipped past Masaki, even when it didn’t involve her own children. The woman had a keen eye and a thread that sang true whenever Kisuke had touched it. She was special. They all were. He wondered, then, at the strangeness of meetings and the winding cords of fate. Wondered at his own strange connection here.

_ Why do you wonder? _ Aishō asked as he sipped at his tea and let it sit on his tongue. It reminded him of the forest.

Because he was The Weaver. He saw, he didn’t participate. Surely that was cheating.

_ You would know _ .

“What?” Kisuke asked aloud.

Masaki’s laughter was as full as the sky on a clear day.

“I said, do you think you’ll be staying for dinner?”

“Oh.” He hadn’t thought of the time. He never did. “It wasn’t my intention, I don’t want to impose.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please. I’ll just walk down to the store for a few things, it won’t take long.”

Was that all? Kisuke watched her go, then looked at Ichigo who had slouched further in his chair, head tilted against the back, wearing a faint smirk.

“She’s not very subtle.”

He took another sip of his tea. “Neither are you.”

Ichigo’s smirk blossomed into a surprised grin as he laughed. “I guess that’s fair.”

The gentle, ambient noises of the house settled around them, punctuated only by the sound of the front door opening and closing when Masaki left. It wasn’t quite as uncomfortable as Kisuke expected it might be, for all his floundering. He found that he enjoyed simply sitting there. Basking in Ichigo’s ease of being.

But, as was typical of his nature, the curiosity eventually won out.

“Your father told me you were on break from university,” he said, drawing on what he already knew.

“Mmm.” Ichigo shifted and leaned forward on the table. “Taking a year.”

“He didn’t mention what you were studying.”

“Physics.”

His brows rose, more in delight than surprise. “How interesting.”

“Do you actually mean that or are you just humoring me?” Ichigo asked, smiling again.

Kisuke drank from his cup, watching Ichigo, delighting more still in the playful dance of those eyes that watched him in return.

“I think you’ll find that I mean most of the things I say.”

“Most?” Ichigo asked.

He nodded once. “There are exceptions to all things.”

It was an amusing thing to say to a man of science, especially when Kisuke’s existence defied most of these supposed rules of the universe. Then again, the universe itself did a wonderful job of defying them as well. Kisuke smiled into his tea.

“Dad said you traveled a lot.” Ichigo propped his chin up with a hand, fingers drumming against his cheek.

“Not as much as of late,” he replied.

“Why?”

Kisuke rolled that why around in his mind for a moment. “Why do I travel or why have I stopped?”

“Both.”

Ichigo’s easiness had turned his smile lazy. It was almost enough to distract him from the danger of such an innocuous conversation.

He breathed in, Aishō becoming the jackal again, and she curled up between his shoulder blades to keep him steady. He had an opportunity here he wasn’t sure he should take, counterweight or no. There was trust in balance. If Ichigo really did possess the strength of will Kisuke suspected he did, he wanted to know it first. Feel it pressed around him like the waters of the infinite.

“Do you want the truth?” he asked, setting his cup down. “Or would you prefer to hear the lie I tell everyone else?”

Ichigo squinted at him briefly, as if trying to reach inside Kisuke’s mind to figure out why he’d ask such a thing. “The truth. Why would I want anything less?”

“I need to be sure,” Kisuke said. And then, “Perhaps some day I’ll tell you.”

The slack-jawed grin he received in response was expected, but still satisfying, and Ichigo leaned over the table, bringing himself further into Kisuke’s space.

“Come on, you can’t dangle that shit in front of me and then say sike,” Ichigo said, brows furrowed.

“I believe I can do whatever pleases me,” Kisuke replied. He fought the width of his own smile.

Brown eyes searched his, flicking, he noted, to his lips and up again. It inspired a thrill to roll through his stomach like thunder. Then Ichigo slid back into his chair, letting his long legs stretch out under the table—a sneakered foot tapping Kisuke’s chair, the graze of his calf against Kisuke’s ankle. He breathed out.

“Y’know, you’re just as infuriating as I thought you’d be. If not more,” Ichigo said.

Kisuke had to laugh, although it wavered. 

“Already? But we’ve been acquainted rather briefly.”

“Yeah.” Ichigo pinned him down with a single look. “Feels like longer.”

_ Feels like a hundred lifetimes, all coiled together, without end or beginning. _

Kisuke wondered if he should tell Ichigo how right he was.

☽

Eyes closed, Kisuke plucked at the undulating ocean of threads. Fingers deft and always moving, arranging them as they were meant to be. He couldn’t say how he knew which ones needed to go where. Or where the patterns came from. They simply were. And his fingers simply fell into the rhythm as if they had been created to do this one thing and nothing else. Though that wasn’t as true as it once was.

Kisuke felt a tendril of distraction for the first time in his many eons. It burned like a pyre, a flare of harsh sunlight in his periphery. His fingers itched for more than constant motion now.

_ You yearn for him _ , Aishō said.

Is that what it was? The stray thoughts of what it might be like for his fingers to weave through the bright threads of Ichigo’s hair. Touch the slope of his nose, the swell of his mouth, hear the vibration of his voice even as it unmade him.

_ Yes _ , she said.  _ He will always be the one who pulls at you. Your moon to his sun. Look _ .

Kisuke did, following her voice to find the brightest points woven into each sprawling, endless pattern. There were countless instances of their threads entwined, adding richness and meaning to the design. Though there were countless others where only one existed. A solitary point alone in its constellation.

What of these?

_ Some universes weren’t meant for you. Or for him _ .

What of the others? Why am I not bound to another in his stead?

He felt Aishō squint as she leaned in for a closer look. Kisuke wondered what she saw.

_ I don’t know _ , she said.  _ Perhaps these are the lives I have no voice _ .

How strange. And yet it was not.

His fingers moved, listening to the songs in each thread as they slid against his skin. Connecting and reconnecting. Adding all their voices to the pattern. The colors were so vibrant, but still, none burned through the ether quite like the one spun from molten gold and starlight.

_ He is gold to you? _

Kisuke breathed in and Aishō’s rays stretched out to warm his back.

He is everything.

Aishō grew warmer and seemed to sigh.

_ You are an interesting one, Weaver _ .

Kisuke didn’t know what he was, except interminable and falling.

The concept of being bound to Ichigo even in the designs that did not hold his color stayed with Kisuke for some days after. He wondered what made Aishō silent. Wondered if it had anything to do with Yoruichi’s fate. Her thread still extended out into nothing, only occasionally adding her intense, saffron hues to a pattern. Like the day silver looped around deep red and yellow, marking their meeting in the fabric. There was something sad about always watching hers disappear into the ether where not even Kisuke could see. Which was in itself an odd thing.

So, he chose to pay his old friend another visit. Maybe Aishō would have some answers once she understood.

“You’re here early.”

“Am I?” Kisuke asked, smiling as he joined Yoruichi on the edge of the porch.

“Usually you don’t come around until the moon is half full,” she said.

“I didn’t realize I’d created a habit.”

Yoruichi laughed wryly. “Are you surprised, when all you look at is patterns?”

“Ah, you may be right,” he replied.

Afternoon sunlight lit the garden, not a cloud for miles. Kisuke squinted against the glare bouncing off green leaves and thought of how he might proceed.

“So, what’s up?” Yoruichi asked. She narrowed her eyes at him. “It doesn’t happen today, does it?”

“It doesn’t,” he answered. “I brought someone who might be able to help you, since I cannot.”

Yoruichi had relaxed only to grow tense again as Kisuke chose to rip away the proverbial bandaid by rolling up his sleeve without preamble.

“But I don’t— oh.  _ Oh _ , Kisuke. It’s not—?” she asked, hand flying to her mouth.

He smiled again and shook his head.

“No.”

“Thank god. I don’t think I could’ve survived if it happened to both of us,” Yoruichi said, exhaling roughly.

“I thought she might be able to help you,” he explained.

“She?”

“Aishō.”

Yoruichi’s lips curved into a smirk. “How fitting.”

“That’s what I said.”

But Aishō did not care for their good-humor and she leapt from Kisuke’s arm to land lightly on the stones, her big black paws making no noise at all.

“Yes, you’re both so clever,” she sighed as she stepped towards them. “Now, show me.”

Yoruichi pulled aside the collar of her shirt, until the short-eared owl was visible in the crook of her shoulder. Aishō leaned closer still, then sniffed gently.

“It’s always been like this?”

“For an eternity,” Yoruichi said. 

Kisuke heard the pain hiding in her words. He reached over and placed his hand over hers and she held fast, squeezing.

Aishō sat back on her haunches, moonlight eyes narrowed in thought. “While it’s unusual for my kind to choose a bond in the lifetime both parties aren’t alive, it does happen.”

“But what of her thread? It has no end. No purpose,” Kisuke said.

“None that you can discern, maybe,” Aishō replied. “Her fate may be unwritten merely because it’s waiting for something.”

Yoruichi laughed, but it held no life.

“If I have to wait any longer, I think I’d rather just kill myself.”

“Yoruichi,” he said, scowling at her.

“What? Can you blame me?” she asked.

They looked at one another for a moment and his heart ached from the dim light in her tired eyes. No, he could not blame her. Kisuke would be a liar several times over if he did not confess to having similar thoughts enter his mind. To be eternal was not a gift.

Aishō stood and drew close again. “I admit I don’t know of any who have waited as long as you. But I have an idea.”

She became a swirl of liquid shadow and curled into Kisuke until she was united with him once more.

_ Close your eyes, I need to see. _

He did, then wondered what it was she sought.

_ The other half of this bond _ , Aishō said.  _ If I cannot sense it, then that means they don’t exist yet. In any lifetime _ .

How is that possible?

_ Our kind are very sensitive. This one must be exceptionally so _ .

But…to see beyond the fabric, that’s—

_ Impossible? _ Aishō asked, amusement warming her tone.  _ It may seem impossible, but I assure you, Weaver, that it isn’t _ .

The fabric rolled calmly in the ether like ocean waves. Kisuke looked at its vast sprawl, felt the threads calling to him, as they always did. He wondered how much he did not know. How much he would never know.

“She says the one you’re meant to be bonded with might not exist yet,” he said aloud to Yoruichi, whose fingers spasmed in his grasp.

“What?”

_ I need to speak with it _ , Aishō instructed.

“It’s hard to explain.” Kisuke opened his eyes. “She wants me to touch the owl, to create a link.”

Yoruichi only hesitated for a breath before she tugged her shirt down lower. He lifted his free hand and pressed it against the hollow of her shoulder. Aishō seemed to vibrate within him, though he could hear nothing. Did soul bonds even communicate with language? Kisuke would have to ask her later.

_ That is enough, thank you _ .

“Well?” Yoruichi asked when he dropped his hand, gripping the other hard enough to make his bones creak.

_ The soul bond confirmed my suspicions _ , Aishō replied.  _ The one on the other end has not come into being yet. But the soul bond said it was almost time, they feel it as they have always felt it. _

“What of her thread?” Kisuke asked, mouth pulling into a frown.

_ Once her bonded has life, her own will react accordingly _ .

“Aishō…” He paused. Already his heart ached with a more vivid pain. “Is the bond the reason Yoruichi was trapped here for so long?”

_ I cannot say for certain. But— But I think so, yes _ .

It was the first time he had seen her hesitate. Something she didn’t comment on or acknowledge as he turned to his waiting friend.

“Kisuke I swear to every deity that has ever existed, if you don’t fucking tell me something right now, I’m gonna shatter your fingers into a million little pieces.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to keep you in suspense,” Kisuke said, smiling rather sheepishly. “Aishō says your counterpart is waiting to be born. The bond is indeed what prolonged your life so considerably.”

Yoruichi’s amber eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open as she struggled to form words.

“But they  _ will _ be born? They’re going to exist?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Jesus,” she sighed. “For so long I thought—”

Kisuke thought she might cry, noting how she looked up at the porch roof and nowhere else.

“I know you did.”

“Thank you,” Yoruichi said as she dropped her gaze, furiously rubbing at her face where a few tears had fallen despite her best efforts.

“The honor is mine, Yoruichi.” He held her hand in both of his. “I’m only happy to offer you some relief.”

For he knew how much not knowing had nearly ended her. Although Kisuke was not sure knowing actually made anything easier.

_ Does it matter? _ Aishō asked.

He looked at the light in Yoruichi’s eyes and the smile that would not stop pulling at the edges of her mouth and supposed that it didn’t.

☼

“Where are we?” Ichigo asked, twigs and leaves snapping under his feet as they walked.

Kisuke cast him an amused glance.

“I thought that would be obvious.”

Ichigo scoffed. “I’ve seen trees, okay? These are different.”

“How are they different?” he asked.

“They feel old,” Ichigo said. He reached out to touch one of the tree trunks, letting his hand pass over the springy, green moss clinging to its bark. “Like, impossibly old.”

Interesting, that Ichigo could sense their timelessness. For it wasn’t the passage of time that made them seem old, but the absence of it. Kisuke watched the play of emotions over Ichigo’s face and saw the wonder there. The interest, the curiosity. It inspired a warmth to grow and spread inside of him, one that had nothing to do with Aishō’s rays.

“What makes it so impossible?”

Ichigo smiled, the arc of his mouth a solar flare in the shadows. “If I say I don’t know, something tells me you’re gonna give me shit for it.”

“Mmm, but I won’t now,” Kisuke replied.

His teasing earned him the firm press of Ichigo’s shoulder against his shoulder. The ghost of a hand against the back of his hand.

“How magnanimous of you.”

He smiled, too, and the tree-leaves rustled above them in the breeze that wasn’t there.

Kisuke couldn’t say exactly what made him change his mind after what must have been only a few weeks. Why he chose to share this place with Ichigo and divulge some of his secrets. He was not often in positions that left him vulnerable, but he thought, perhaps, that for there to be a foundation of trust, he should try to give Ichigo some of his own.

There was also the small fact that a part of him was really quite selfish. A part that wanted to keep Ichigo with him always. And while they couldn’t remain here forever, he could at least indulge himself, if only a little. 

“This forest is both older and yet younger than you would believe, you know,” Kisuke said, allowing his lazy gait to bring them closer again.

Ichigo leaned into him with purpose. “What makes you so sure I wouldn’t believe you?”

“Your world is measured in absolutes, is it not?” he asked. “Everything in the universe behaves as it should, because man has deemed it so.”

“It’s not really  _ that _ rigid,” Ichigo replied, laughing.

Kisuke looked at him—at his light and his tranquility. His confidence that he understood enough to think the rules couldn’t be broken. Not in the way Kisuke would break them.

“I wonder what would happen if you knew exactly how  _ not _ rigid the world was,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ichigo frowned, but it did not remain on his face for long after the branches gave way. “Whoa.” 

Confusion became awe once more. Kisuke watched Ichigo turn in a slow circle, those dark eyes darting in every direction, trying to understand.

“Where are we?”

He smirked faintly. “You already asked that question.”

“I did?” Ichigo asked, distracted, as he wandered closer to the dilapidated shrine, reaching out to touch the purple blooms.

“Ichigo.”

“Mmm?”

“Sit with me,” Kisuke said, picking the sturdiest part of the wooden landing.

Ichigo did. But once they were there together, shoulder to shoulder in the peace of this strange glade, he found he did not know how to begin. Where did one begin, anyway? Kisuke had no recollection of his own origins, did not know how to explain the truth, his truth, in a way that didn’t defy all logic.

A few leaves fluttered gently and the wisteria swayed above them. He noticed Ichigo studying the subtle movement, a small wrinkle between his eyebrows, no doubt wondering why he couldn’t feel the air here.

Surely Kisuke didn’t need the right words. Surely, if they were meant to know one another, there was no reason to fear. He knew that in his heart, felt it in the very foundation of his being, yet he could not stop the tremor within him. Not even when Aishō draped herself across his shoulders to offer him comfort.

_ He sees you as you see him, do not fear. _

It was the exact reason he did fear, though. For he had never been  _ seen _ by anyone, not like this. Aishō sighed.

Kisuke pushed past the feeling anyway.

“Do you believe in fate?” he asked. 

“I never thought about it, honestly,” Ichigo answered, turning to look at him. “But there’s an order to things, isn’t there?”

“Yes and no.”

“How is it both?”

“It simply is.” Kisuke could not help dancing. “Order and chaos exist side by side, do they not?”

Brown eyes bore directly into his, no doubt another attempt to pin him down.

“Are you actually gonna tell me what’s on your mind, or are you gonna keep talking in circles?” Ichigo asked.

He almost laughed. So much for dancing. “If I tell you, you’ll think I’m quite mad.”

“You should still tell me.”

“Why?”

“Because everything seems possible when it comes out of your mouth,” Ichigo said, pointedly dropping his gaze.

Kisuke couldn’t stop said lips from twitching. Nor could he stop the pleasant heat from prickling over every inch of his skin.

“Even if it defies your so-called rules of the universe?” he asked.

Ichigo smiled in return. “Even then.”

They were so close and the place their shoulders met almost seemed to burn. For Kisuke saw that as it was, as he saw everything else. Felt it, as he felt everything else. A tug against his fourth rib and Aishō sinking into him like a brand.

In that moment, with Ichigo radiating into him and around him, the fear fell away. There was no room for it here, in the absence of shadows. And the answer, he realized, was simple. Because he’d already answered it a thousand times in a thousand different ways.

“There is indeed an order to things, but it isn’t measured in units and formulas,” Kisuke explained. He paused for breath and looked out at the glade. “Time is a composition, each life a thread and each lifetime a pattern more beautiful than you could ever imagine. I know this, because I have spent millennia weaving the fabric of the universe with my own hands.”

“Wait, did you say millennia?” Ichigo asked.

He glanced over.

“I did.”

“That’s—” Ichigo’s eyebrows disappeared beneath the vibrant fringe of his bangs. “How is that even possible?”

Kisuke looked down at his hands now, noting the lines and the calluses. “I am The Weaver. I walk among you, but I’m not human, in the traditional sense.”

Ichigo huffed out a sound of what Kisuke could only assume was astonishment.

“So, what are you?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly and then closed his eyes. “I see,” he said, reaching out to pluck at the myriad threads, listening to the hum. “And I move the threads where they are meant to go as is my purpose.”

At first, there was almost complete silence. Save for the pounding of his own heart in his ears and Ichigo’s quiet breathing. Had he pushed his luck? It wouldn’t be the first time.

But before the fear could slither in and take root once again, fingers curled around his wrist, bringing his arm back down into his lap.

“What are you doing?” Kisuke asked, barely more than a whisper as he opened his eyes.

Ichigo stared at him for a long moment, still searching. Kisuke felt it like a physical thing and wondered why it terrified him so much.

“How do you know that’s your only purpose?”

That wasn’t the question he’d expected to hear. “I’m sorry?”

Should he require more than one? Aishō flicked her tail sharply and Kisuke had no trouble imagining her unimpressed expression.

“I mean what if there was something else?” Ichigo asked. He still held Kisuke’s wrist, but he shifted, fingers sliding up over the heel of Kisuke’s palm. Almost holding his hand, but not quite.

_ Ah _ .

“You mean what if there was someone else,” he said, smiling again.

A soft blush colored Ichigo’s cheeks and he ducked his head.

“That obvious?”

“It is the strangeness of knowing someone,” Kisuke replied. “And also not.”

Ichigo laughed quietly. “So, it’s not just me, then.”

“No.”

“Kinda started to feel like I might be crazy.”

He studied the crown of Ichigo’s bent head, remembering his urge to touch the fiery strands, and raised his other hand, hesitating only a moment before letting his fingers sift through Ichigo’s hair. Kisuke had never known this exact sensation in this life, he understood that logically. Yet, somehow, it was still as familiar to him as his own existence. As the slide of countless threads against his fingertips.

Ichigo said nothing—merely tipped over until his forehead pressed against Kisuke’s shoulder, finally moving to link their hands together.

A small gesture, but one significant enough that it made his chest tight. Too full, perhaps. Unable to contain all of these new emotions he didn’t know how to categorize. Kisuke carded through Ichigo’s hair again, letting his thoughts wander. 

Was this his purpose? He had been The Weaver for so long, he knew nothing else. Until he did. Aishō curled into herself and became the sun, blazing away at the back of his neck. A constant star.

“Why have you accepted what I am so easily?” he had to ask.

“I don’t know. It’s not something I can explain in words.”

“But you believe me.”

Ichigo lifted his head to look at him. “Yeah. I do.”

Kisuke saw affection in brown eyes and felt certainty in long fingers slotted between his own. Saw gold and silver behind his eyelids, felt the weight of all their lives settle over him.

He listened to the tree leaves rustle in a breeze that wasn’t there, mingled with the gentle exhale of Ichigo’s breath beside him, and it was enough.

☽

For most of his many years, Kisuke had believed the patterns lacked a purpose. Something unpredictable yet pleasing that captured the essence of life more than a direct representation of it. There were times, though, when he sat and pulled at the threads that pulled at him, and found himself stopping just to look and get lost in the details. Much like he was today.

_ You are distracted _ .

“Yes,” he answered aloud. There was no one else to hear him in his own living room. “Though you know why.”

_ Of course I do _ , Aishō huffed.

“You’re rather tense yourself.”

_ Only because your thoughts of him are so loud. I already anticipated his coming, but now I feel restless and impatient _ .

It wasn’t unusual for their emotions to influence one another, as the bond between them had settled into something well-worn over time. Something without thought, not unlike the connection he had with Ichigo. Kisuke found that he rather liked it. Feeling tethered to something that wasn’t only the fabric.

He adjusted his grip on the threads and studied the intricate shapes that made up the whole.

“I never asked,” he said. “Do you see it as I see it?”

_ If you mean the patterns within, then yes _ .

“Did you always?”

_ No _ . Aishō wandered, walking down the length of his arm. _ I noticed your looking and so started to look as well _ .

“They have become more interesting as of late.”

_ They have _ .

The scene today was difficult to make out at first, hidden in the chaos that wasn’t chaos. But if Kisuke allowed his sight to go soft and unfocused, he saw the ghosts of tree branches underneath and strange creatures he had no names for. He wondered if his imagination was getting the better of him. Or if these things were really there.

Then a flare of light bled through the ether, blotting all of it out as the sound of the front door opening filtered into the room. Aishō’s tawny ears perked up immediately and Kisuke laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Ichigo asked from the hall. His shoes clunked onto the wooden floorboards.

“Nothing,” he answered.

Ichigo snorted. 

“Uh huh.” 

The light grew stronger and the air moved in front of him and Kisuke knew Ichigo had joined him on the floor, one bony knee pressing into his shin to confirm it. Aishō hovered just underneath the edge of Kisuke’s sleeve, out of sight, but close. 

Why do you not speak to him? he wondered. Had been wondering, for quite a while, though Aishō never answered his silent questions.

She did now, though. With another sigh and a sadness in her voice that Kisuke had never heard before.

_ Because it is a sensitive subject for my kind _ , she said, curling around his wrist. _ Some lives the bond isn’t meant to be seen. I find it hard to explain, just as you cannot explain your own work. He feels it, despite this. But he does not know me, not here _ .

Forgive me, Aishō, I did not mean to upset you.

_ It is the way of things, Weaver. We all must bear its consequence _ .

He admitted he knew very little of her world, though he could not deny such a truth. Still, he felt his own sadness at this, for not being able to share such an experience seemed almost cruel. His hands twitched in his lap, pulling at the threads. Not in this life.

Ichigo’s quiet voice cut through his musings.

“You’re frowning now.”

“Am I?”

Kisuke breathed in only to lose it a moment later, not expecting the fingertips that grazed the swell of his bottom lip. His chin, his jaw, the arc of his cheekbone. It made his pulse flutter.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Gathering data,” Ichigo replied.

Kisuke smiled and the gentle caresses continued their path over the planes of his face.

“And what have you deduced so far?”

“I dunno yet.” Ichigo shifted to thoroughly invade Kisuke’s space, their knees overlapping and Ichigo’s other hand resting upon his thigh. “Need to collect more.”

Curious fingers traced the amused arc of his mouth, since Kisuke found he could do nothing else but smile now. 

Had he ever been touched like this? He could not remember. Just as he could not remember the press of a palm against his cheek in such a way. Kisuke leaned into it, unable to help himself, and the phosphorous glow behind his eyelids threatened to consume him.

“Ichigo,” he said, finally opening his eyes.

“Mmm?”

Kisuke took in the sight of him so close, noticed the tension between his brows.

“I’m fine.”

Ichigo’s lips quirked. “I know.”

“But you are not,” he said.

It was the right thing to say, because Ichigo’s light dimmed slightly, as if he’d been forcing it to burn beyond capacity.

“Just seems like I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Kisuke frowned again.

“What do you mean?”

“ _ You _ .” Ichigo leaned back to let his hands speak with his words. “You’re like, this amazing fucking impossibility, but you’re sitting right in front of me and I can touch you and—” he paused, long fingers clenching into fists. “And  _ feel _ things about you and it’s like a damn fairy tale or something. This kind of stuff just doesn’t happen to people.”

Had Ichigo been afraid this whole time? Worrying in silence that Kisuke was nothing more than a dream, short-lived.

That knowledge pained him, yet Kisuke could sympathize with the sentiment a great deal. Since the minutes that he did not marvel at his fate were few and far between. He reached out to take one of Ichigo’s fists, uncurling it so that he might fit their hands together.

“And yet it is happening,” Kisuke told him.

Ichigo smiled and dropped his chin into his other hand.

“Yeah well, like I said, you do a fantastic job of defying logic.”

May I tell him? Kisuke asked. Even if he does not remember…next time. I wish to ease his anxiety.

Aishō coiled even tighter around his wrist, beside the place their palms met.

_ I suppose it wouldn’t matter, if you were the one to tell him _ .

He felt her own yearning, despite her efforts to hide it, and squeezed Ichigo’s hand in his own.

“Shall I defy it a little more?”

“There’s more?” Ichigo asked wryly.

“There is always more.” Kisuke held his gaze, thumb dragging over his knuckles. “Because this life is not the only life.”

Ichigo squinted at him.

“Y’know, I thought you’d stop with the cryptic bullshit after a while, but I guess I was wrong.”

He laughed.

“The fabric is the whole, but the threads are the countless lives that give it form and function. And there are countless patterns for countless universes,” Kisuke said. The squinting became more pronounced.

“Are you telling me reincarnation is real?” Ichigo asked.

“In a sense, yes.” Which was both the truth and also not.

“How many lives have you had?”

“My sight doesn’t quite reach every corner, I have no way of knowing the exact number. However, there are many. And there will be many more, for both of us,” he answered.

Ichigo studied him for a moment. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You seem to think I will vanish before your very eyes one day, as if I’d never existed.” Kisuke lifted his other hand, carding through sunset strands. “I wanted to reassure you that we knew one another several hundred times over.”

“That many, huh? No wonder it always felt like I knew you and didn’t.”

“You don’t always remember,” he said and tilted his head. “Then again, neither do I.”

“But we find each other anyway,” Ichigo replied.

“Yes.”

Usually, at least. There would always be the lives where they missed one another. Their threads part of the same pattern, never quite meeting. Those were far more difficult, Kisuke thought, than the lives that only one of them existed and the other did not. Because now that he knew Ichigo, he could not imagine the opposite. And a world they both inhabited, yet never crossed paths? That wasn’t a world he wished to live in.

Still, Kisuke stared into those soft, clear eyes and felt he was not worthy of any of them. For he was not certain that he deserved to be loved like this even once, let alone hundreds of times over.

But Ichigo sat up and leaned in without a word, pressing his lips to Kisuke’s lips and silencing his thoughts rather effectively. He hummed, free hand returning to Ichigo’s hair to draw him closer. It was not their first kiss or their last. Not their most passionate or even their most innocent. Because Kisuke felt all of them at once every time their mouths met. Because every touch was an echo of one long since past and one that had yet to happen. An overwhelming reality, yet one he would not trade for anything, no matter how unworthy he believed himself to be.

Withdrawing slightly, Ichigo rested his forehead against Kisuke’s and held his hand a bit tighter.

“Is it always like this?”

“Like what?” he asked, despite knowing exactly what Ichigo meant.

“So intense,” Ichigo said. “Like a storm living right under my skin.”

Kisuke smiled again.

“I don’t know.”

He would be surprised to find it wasn’t, the way he ached, even quietly, for Ichigo’s presence. His heart told him this was an absolute. Perhaps he could be sure of that if nothing else.

“I hope so,” Ichigo whispered, and now it was Kisuke who had no more words to offer.

_ You do not need them _ , Aishō said.

She was right, of course. He did not. Kisuke only needed her warmth as it spread through him, meeting the warmth of Ichigo all around him, and the taste of gold on his tongue when he pressed close for another kiss, deeper than the last.

The threads called out to him, as they always had, but he didn’t listen. Because Kisuke had woven his fingers into Ichigo’s hair and was content a hundred times.

☼

Some lives felt longer than others. Some ended too quickly, almost as soon as they’d begun. Others stretched out into a vast infinity, but even in those, one could find purpose. Even in those, one could find a home.

For Kisuke and Ichigo, there was no greater gift.

☼ ☽

**Author's Note:**

> Aishō is the japanese word for affinity


End file.
